The next two days without Emily in the house were the worst of my life. Not only had I traded my best friend’s freedom for her life, but I missed her terribly. I had never before felt so strongly for another before, and it seemed oddly typical of my life that the first female I should develop feelings for was a bizarre human who had no intention of ever caring about me.
Still, memories of our tryst kept me going on the days when it felt impossible, and I knew that I couldn’t give up on my search for her. Many Thressl’n men would show no mercy with a wandering human, and Thressl’n females were quite bitter at the thought that because of male stupidity, they were going to be replaced by inferior females from another world. Either way, if she was discovered, she would run into danger. It was unavoidable.
I did my best to get through work as quickly as I could so that I could return all of my efforts back to searching for Emily. I subtly informed Kelron of her disappearance, hoping that there would be a chance that he found her. However, I could only assume he was telling me the truth when he said that he had seen no sign of the human, and my search continued alone and without much progress.
I divided my time between working, moving on foot in search of Emily, and searching in the hovercraft. Two days of searching yielded no results, and I knew I finally had no choice but to check the camps. However, there was no way that anybody would offer me clearance without a good enough reason.
A sudden, sick plan formed in my mind, and as much as I hated the thought of it, I knew what had to be done. If nothing else, it was worth a try. Even if it got me into trouble.
***
“You want what?”
I had been expecting resistance in the head office. I was a simple repair and maintenance man, while the men moving in and out of the building issuing orders and monitoring clearance into the Supreme Leader’s palace were all high-ranking officials with a permanent scowl etched on their faces. It was an intimidating place to be, particularly now that I was used to isolation on Mount Zennith.
“State your purpose,” the secretary said without bothering to look up at me from the papers on the desk in front of him.
“I want to speak with Captain Zod.”
“What?” The man caught my eye and laughed unkindly. “There is no way that Captain Zod would see someone like you.”
I glowered.
“It just so happens I found a lost valuable that the Captain has been looking for and he said that he would reward me for it. I would like to speak with him about the compensation.”
“I see,” the man said, though it was clear that he didn’t believe me.
“Please tell Captain Zod that I am here.”
“All right, all right. Have a seat.”
I refused to budge, and the man sighed heavily. He pressed a button combination on his communication device and held it up to his mouth.
“Captain Zod, there’s someone here who would like to see you. He says he returned a valuable item to you and you promised him compensation.”
The man was silent for a moment before looking up at me one more time.
“Your name?”
“Laike Ostra’ki,” I answered, standing as tall as I could. I knew that he could tell by my clothes that I was low ranking, but that didn’t mean I had to look meek. In fact, if I could, I would have wanted to knock some sense into him.
“Captain Zod says to come right up,” the man said, lowering his communication device away in surprise. “It’s room 10A.”
“That is what I thought,” I said, raising my chin up at the secretary and heading toward the elevator. “Thank you.”
***
The elevator ride was a little bit intimidating. The elevators were large and spacious, built to accommodate many large and busy Thressl’n bodies at a time. But when I was alone in the elevator it felt far too vast and seemed to accentuate the hollow feeling I had in my chest after losing Emily.
But that was why I was here. My whole purpose for facing this monster again was to try and help Emily out of the unfortunate situation I was sure she had gotten herself into. I had a gut instinct that I would find her at the camps. But if I was going to go, I wanted to do it properly and ensure my success.
“Captain Zod,” I said, bowing deeply in greeting.
“Nice to see you again, Ostra’ki.”
Zod didn’t smile at me, but he did look up to study my face. I took it as a good sign.
“I have a request, Captain Zod,” I said quietly. I suddenly felt insecure about my plan. But it was far too late to turn back now.
“Yes, spit it out. I’m a busy man.”
“I understand. I was wondering if there was a chance that, before all the Earth women were spoken for—”
“Women?” Zod asked, his face perplexed.
“Females,” I corrected myself. The temperature of my body was rising with the anxiety I felt. I was sure I would be discovered. Then it would be me sent to fight the wars in the great beyond, not Absle.
“I think I know where you’re going with this,” Zod said, with a sinister smile creasing his face. “You want a girl, don’t you?”
“Um. Yes, sir.”
“Well, you know that the Earth females are highly coveted, don’t you?”
“Of course, sir. That’s why I want one.”
Zod’s smile widened. “Is that right?”
I nodded, doing my best to keep my chin high in the air. If he thought I was second-guessing myself, or perceived me as weak, then he might want to toy with me even though he promised to reward me for turning Absle in to him.
“I would like a companion very much, sir.”
“Wouldn’t we all? Well, I’m afraid that many of the females are already spoken for by high ranking men. But, I will give you clearance to check the camps for yourself. If there are any females who have not been claimed yet, you have my blessing, and, I assume, the blessing of Supreme Leader Aloitus, to choose one.”
My hearts soared at this news, and Captain Zod bent over his desk to stamp a clearance pass and scribble a short message on the card.
“Take this with you to Mount Zennith. I assume this makes us even.”
“Of course, sir. Thank you very much.”
I turned to leave, and Zod cleared his throat. I hesitated before crossing through the doorway.
“I don’t want to see you here again, understood? Even if you aren’t able to receive a female, we will not interact like this again.”
“I understand. Thank you, Captain Zod.”
He grunted in response, and I left the room briskly, still not convinced that he wasn’t going to change his mind.
***
My hands were shaking as I commanded the control panel of the hovercraft, speeding as quickly as I could without breaking the traffic laws. It was difficult for me to do, because I spent most of my time driving in the mountains, where the laws in the sky were much laxer. I was usually the only person around, so I used my craft liberally.
I was able to breathe a sigh of relief once I finally made it over the threshold of the first steep mountain range. I steadily sped up the craft, my eyes searching the horizon until I could see the peak of the tents where the human females were being kept. A surge of nausea pulsed through my body. Traffic was heavy out this way. Visiting hours must have been going on. If any of them already got their hands on Emily, I didn’t know what I was going to do.
“Laike, what are you doing here?”
I sighed. Jennai’k was a Thressl’n female who had been in my maintenance courses. She was a rather unpleasant female when you didn’t know her very well, but once you were on friendly terms with her, she was quite a loyal and kind friend.
“I got clearance for an Earth female,” I said, trying to sound proud about it.
“Oh gods, not you too!”
I frowned. “What’s wrong with it?”
“It’s as if you men think that human females are better than the females you should be mated with. We are not the ones who fueled the gender disparity. It is not our fault the better jobs are given to men, and that male children were preferred. And yet we are being punished and mocked because we do not hold the qualities of Earth females. Well, I’ll tell you something, Laike. They’re inferior to us in so many ways. We are the females you should be after, not these thin-skinned, water-based disgraces!”
I paused for a moment as it dawned on me that Jennai’k was jealous. And she had every right to be. The worst part was that she was having it rubbed in her face day in and day out that the men on this planet were overlooking Thressl’n women once again in pursuit of a new, exotic specimen from a planet known for its destructive ways.
“I am sorry that you feel that way,” I said, bowing deeply to Jannai’k. “I have never favored humans over Thressl’n, or the other way around either. I am simply searching for the one I feel I am meant to be mated with.”
Jennai’k’s face softened.
“Well…there is one female unspoken for. She had escaped the day the ships came in, and some of the humans recently found her and brought her back. Her name is Dr. Lain Brousseau.”
I almost told her no, because I knew that was not the name of my female. But something stopped me.
“Come, I will take you to her.”
My entire body felt close to bursting as Jennai’k led me through the tent. The human females were lined up in front of their beds, and each of them had a Thressl’n man in front of them. They had brought strange arrays of gifts and were presenting them to the human females proudly.
I scanned the room for Emily but didn’t see her. I felt crushed with defeat until Jennai’k stopped abruptly.
“Excuse me, but this human is spoken for,” she said. “You are expected in Camp 2.”
The Thressl’n man in front of us scowled at Jennai’k. “But I want this one!”
When he stepped out of the way, my hearts nearly jumped out of my chest. Emily was holding her arms tightly, fear on every crevice of her face. She refused to look up at any of us until I stepped forward and offered my hand out to her.
“Is it all right if I care for you?” I asked.
Emily’s golden eyes widened, and she looked from me to the other Thressl’n man and nodded.
“Great!” Jennai’k exclaimed. “Let the courtship begin!”
***
Emily and I stood facing each other, quiet as the rest of the Thressl’n men and Earth females jabbered amongst themselves. She was more beautiful than I remembered her being, and all I wanted to do was reach out to touch her.
But she had left my hand dangling in the air. I had no idea what she was thinking or feeling, and I had a feeling there was no way she was going to let me in on it.
“How have you been?” I finally asked. I was burning to just pick her up and take her out of this place. But there were rules in the camps. And we had to act as if we had just met.
“Does it matter?” Emily said darkly, her supple lips drawing into a frown.
“Of course it matters!”
I had forgotten how aggravating her defiance could be. But we were in a public space. I couldn’t let my temper get the best of me.
“I don’t know how you managed this,” Emily said quietly. “But thank you. I didn’t like that man.”
My anger melted away. She was just afraid. I could hardly blame her. The camps were criminally efficient, and once she was assigned to a Thressl’n, that was going to be the end of it.
At least if she was assigned to me, I could see to it that no harm came to her. Most of the men I knew would not tolerate such defiance from a female. I knew it took me everything I had not to put her in her place at times. The others weren’t like me though. They would not see the reason behind her actions. And they certainly would not empathize.
“You owe me nothing. I just want you to know that I have a plan,” I said. I lowered my voice to a whisper. “While you were gone, I had a chance to do some thinking. I think there is a solution that we can come to that will benefit us both. But I am going to need your help. You must become my mate.”
Emily’s face fell. “Is that all you think about?”
The pitch of her voice raised desperately, and I frowned. She looked sexy when she was angry, but it made me feel as if someone had punched me right in the stomach after a morning meal.
“No,” I said. “All I seem to think about is you.”
Emily’s amber eyes widened in surprise, and she fell silent.
“Please, just trust me.”
Emily didn’t speak again, and before I knew it, a bell was sounding. Visiting hours were over.
I bent down close to her face, and I could feel the charge between us. If I could have taken her right then, I would have. But right now I had to play by the rules. Luckily I had been trained all of my life for that.
“I am going to come back here for you every day,” I whispered. Her eyes stared into mine intently, and I could feel her unbridled longing. But she was too angry to give in to it. Too angry at me, and the Thressl’n in general. And perhaps that was the way it was always going to be. “I am going to come here until you are ready to visit my home again. When you do, I will have a surprise ready for you.”
Emily pursed her lips, and it became impossible for me to read her expression. She wanted nothing to do with me, or with any of us. And that is why I had to do the right thing.
The final bell rang. If I didn’t leave now, I would be banished from the camps.
“Just be advised,” I warned before I turned to leave, “that you should return before Zod locates you in this camp. You are not safe. Not anywhere. Only with me.”
And with that, I left.
***
The next week was busy and tedious. I had to wait until the next visiting hours for the females, and in that time, Jennai’k took the liberty of signing me up for courses on breeding with humans. We were put in an auditorium with the most absurdly simple contraption I had ever seen, as images of humans played from the projector and onto a white screen.
Every movie ended in a successful mating, and a discussion was held with Jenal’k’s own love doctor at the end. We were meant to ask questions and discover more about humans. However, the more I sat in on these “lessons,” the more laughable they seemed. It was clear that none of them had ever lived with a human female before.
And I knew, for certain, how to answer questions about sex with a female that the rest of the Thressl’n had no idea about. It often left me with an overpowering longing to have Emily back in my bed, her warm body draped over me or sighing in pleasure against me.
I went back to my empty home every night, with Emily’s face dancing in my thoughts. I would wake up in the middle of the night craving her body, and the only thing that could get me back to sleep was getting up in the middle of the night and taking a walk to my secret underground workroom. I built it as soon as I was granted permission to build my house in the mountains, just a day after the initial home was complete.
Nobody else knew that it was there because it would have been prohibited by the Thressl’n elders. But I had always been a nonconformist, and the only way I could accept my lot in life was to express myself in other ways, whether they were conventionally accepted or not.
But it was becoming more and more clear to me that I couldn’t stay on this planet. I had nothing left for me here anymore. Nobody had ever understood me. Even Absle had mocked my mind as opposed to celebrating it or showing me compassion when I was being unfairly treated by others who were greedy for the credit for my inventions. I had longed to escape for years, and now I had no reason not to.
My plan was more clear to me now than it had ever been before. I would finish a ship. The best and most advanced ship the solar system had ever seen. And I wouldn’t give it to the Thressl’n government. No, it was far too corrupt. I would keep it for myself. And when it was finished, I would do what I should have done many yeas ago.
I would escape. And I would take Emily with me.